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One of the good things about Salamanca is that everyone walks or bikes everywhere. It is not common to commute or use your car to go anywhere. That's why the city has a great combination of bike trails and roads.

Yesterday, our students took a trail that goes from Salamanca to a small village about four miles away. Open spaces surrounded by trees and small villas, long roads, and impressive views surrounded our students to their destination.

The Casino of Salamanca, located in the historic Palacio de Figueroa, lets you see the aesthetic taste of people who have been able to decorate it with paintings, tapestries and sculptures of beauty and artistic interest for over 150 years.

The careful attention and the wide frame of its neo-renaissance patio make it an ideal place for social celebrations for members of the casino and their relatives, as well as official and public acts. They are also famous for their many festivities, including Fairs of Salamanca, Carnival, and San Juan de Sahagún.

One of the best parts about going abroad to Spain is to get the chance to taste the wide variety of dishes, tapas, and traditional food. It’s even better if you get a cooking class to learn how to cook a delicious paella and a refreshing limonada (lemonade).

Our first stop was the Prado Museum. Based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, the Prado is a magnificent old castle and one of the world’s premiere art galleries. At the Prado, students participated in a guided tour of some of the most fascinating paintings in the history of Spanish art, including works by Velazquéz, Goya, and El Greco, to name a few.

Salamanca is a city where you can breathe literature: in the old part of the city it is impossible to visit a street, monument or square that does not remind us of some character in the world of literature. If we walk along the Roman Bridge we will see the famous headless bull against which the blind man hit Lazarillo de Tormes.

Last weekend we visited the beautiful city of Segovia and the old walled Ávila, Unesco Heritage Site since 1985.

We set off early in the morning to seize the day. When we got to the city, two tour guides were waiting for us under the great Roman aqueduct (pictures below!) ready to show us the city. We walked through the main street, calle real, up to the Alcazar, an old medieval castle.

Salamanca Academy students, joined by some of their new Spanish friends from the Cultural Exchange night, enjoyed a private party at Bar Camelot, where they ate pizza, heard traditional Spanish “Tuna” music, and danced the night away. Popular dance numbers included “Despacito,” “Bailando,” “Gasolina,” “Limbo,” and “The Macarena.” Students also put Wednesday’s Latino dance lesson to good use and partnered up with fellow students to dance salsa.